Chasing the Chase

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Next morning we have breakfast, but Catbard must have gone to work. Everyone’s impatient, so we go to the Locksmith – Ellaspra Ulmarr. Mary Mouse, Orange, and Nevi head into the back to talk, the rest of us keep watch. The come out with the name Vokar Kibbins and an address in the Southern Ward. Off we go again.

The door is kicked in and a couple halflings are running away. I go stop them, and they seem real nervous. They lie worse than I do, so we take them back to the house. Eventually, they admit that a catperson was there with a bunch of others. They gave the tomb-robbed loot to another guy, named Losser at the Dandy Mop Wigshop. Red yells at them some and we head out again. Catbard must have decided not to argue with Red anymore.

We run down the streets, ignoring an illusion of a crash at the intersection before the shop. We barge into the shop and find some stairs leading down. Not waiting or asking, we run right down the stairs. There’s an iron door at the bottom that Red gets us through, right into the sewers. The Big Guy takes a big breath of the rancid air, and Nevi looks around. They both send us south again.

To a dead end, that’s really another illusion. We run on some more until they find secret doors. The one on the left has noise behind it, so I listen while Red words on the door to the right. The Big Guy trips over something in the floor and the left door crashes open, spilling out skeletons. I punch one, and he turns them all to dust. Just looks like they were in storage or something.

Red wants to go right, so Orange pushes through some furniture to get us into a ransacked office. I can’t find anything useful, but I grab some handwriting samples anyway. We rush through some more halls and doors and sewers. Then the trail just stops. It smells a bit sandy and there’s a weird blowback like a sideways explosion on the walls. We keep going until we find a ladder to the street level.

Red checks first and then we climb up. There are some kenku feathers here, and Slicer’s bracelet. What’s that doing here?!? I whistle, but nothing. I grab it from Red’s magic hand while everyone looks around. Red calls the guard and says there’s a rogue Djinn, and asks for a Mage Civiler, like the one who tried to find us at the Bard School, but we don’t find one. Everyone goes to report in, but I just go with Red to the new Restaurant. I don’t want to tell Spy Master I lost another piece of the stone just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Orange says we have to all go to bed when Red gets home. We do, and then wake up in a library with Catbard and Blackstaff. Catbard apologizes, but nobody really minded the chase. Not even Red. Then they have a big conversation about what Xanathar could do for the city, and how Blackstaff and Catbard think he’s evil. Red says everyone’s guilds do bad stuff. Orange thinks we should kill Xanathar, but Red says you’d have to be stupid or really powerful. Some days, I think my flock is both. Blackstaff thinks no one is safe while X is interested in the stones. Red says we’ll need them all to get near enough to attack him. It’s all so confusing.

The Chase Continues

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Catbard calls us all together on Opening Day, while Red is still closing up The Mad House. She says there’s a rumor that the next piece of The Stone is in Mistshore with someone called Xarinda Garliff, or something like that. She wants us to go down, get it, and then give it to her Guild. Orange isn’t so sure about that, until he figures out she’s a Harper. But then he says we have to get Red involved so we don’t fail. She doesn’t want to because Red will want the stone for himself and his evil boss. Orange still thinks Red can be reasonable, and insists, so she sends him a message to come home.

Red’s cranky when he gets home that we didn’t just ask him to meet us down in Mistshore, and immediately lays claim to the stone. Catbard says no, but we head out before it gets too messy. Down in Mistshore, the Big Guy starts smelling blood in the mists. Before we find the source, we get jumped by fish people, and a wizard.

After we get rid of them, Orange has to break open the door and shove through some furniture to get us inside. There’s a weird boat contraption in here that Mary Mouse really likes. He and Red head upstairs with us trailing, to find the lady. She’s scared at first, but Orange says we’re here to help, to escort her to the Grey Hand with her stone. Unfortunately, she sent her familiar off to the City of the Dead with it. She gives us a key and directions and we head out.

That’s when we find all the other bodies. The fish people killed everyone on this dock before going after the stone. Red says the wizard was from his guild, because the lady showed the stone to a member and then refused to give it to him. He says we HAVE to give it to him now, because bad consequences if he doesn’t bring it home. Catbard is adamant that we will do no such thing. We head off to the City before we attract the attention of the guard.

Orange and Mary Mouse get us entry to the City of the Dead, and we head for the lady’s crypt. It stands open. Red sneaks ahead and finds an empty, looted chamber. We all head in, and he searches the rest of the tomb. It is all empty, except for a discarded key. Other crypts in the area have been hit, too. Nevi knows who made the key, so we can ask him about it in the morning. We head outside and follow the tracks leaving the crypt, which head north but then get lost in the shuffle.

Big Guy and Catbard have some fence contacts in the north who might still be open this late at night, so we head out, hoping our robbers sold the things they found. The first one is closed, but the second, The Tirelessly Turning Wheel, is open. Catbard, Red, and Big Guy head inside to talk, while the rest of us watch the street. A little while later, they come out. No one has been selling grave treasures, we’ll have to wait until morning to talk to anyone else.

Assassination?

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Spy Master,

That was a lot harder than I thought. We accidentally kill people so much, but trying to do it on purpose is so much harder. I had Sim and Kris help me find him, they did a really good job, but couldn’t figure out where he goes other than work. Then it was my turn. First day, I got distracted by a kitten, so I went to get potions, instead. The second try, he seemed to notice someone was following him after he went shopping and ran off. The third time, he just closed his shop and didn’t come outside.

Clearly my plan was terrible, so I went to ask for help. Maybe Orange would come back with me and we could go inside. I told Orange there was a bad guy who helped Manshoon, but he said I needed proof so he could report to The Hand. I said I didn’t have any, so he said to talk to Red. I really didn’t want to talk to Red, but Orange would tell him if I didn’t.

I told Red there was a threat to our flock, one of Manshoon’s supporters was still lurking around. He wanted to run him out of town, but I said he was too dangerous, we had to kill him. Red and I were going to pretend it was a robbery, but it didn’t work. He went upstairs as they were closing, and didn’t come back down. Red tried to find him, but he was gone. He didn’t open his store again after that. I think Red robbed it all the next day.

We went to talk the owner of a shop he visits. He told Red about a meeting the man goes to. So, we go there, and I watch the doors outside, so he doesn’t see me before we get him alone. But after awhile, Red came out and said he was taken care of. I didn’t want to go in and be seen, and I trust Red. Well, he keeps his word, at least.

I’m sorry it took so long. He was very paranoid and the shadows weren’t as sticky as they usually are for me. That’s why I need those boots like Red’s got. Then I wouldn’t have needed help. Sorry.

~QS

Through the Maze and Out

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A dozen monstrous zombies attacked us! Nevi calls them wights, but they were really sickly green. After we smash them, we move on, through more halls and doors. Then we find a metal torso crawling around in circles. Red lifts it up with magic and sees three pink toads underneath. He tossed a patch at them and a big boat covered torso and toads together. We had to climb over the boats, but at least we didn’t have to fight the toads.

Lots more hallways, doors, deadends, and traps later, Sam is really bored and complaining. I try to get stories out of her, but she’s just miserable. Then we find a weird room with a big pile of rusty treasure in the center. When we go in, the rust gets up and attacked us! Well, big beetles crawl out of the rust to attack us, anyway. We get some spoils in here, I guess they could only eat metal.

After a whole bunch more running around, we end up back at the hall Red didn’t want to go down in the first place because of the bigger party members. Red sneaks ahead, and says it looks like we’re getting close to the end. He’s real mad about it. After a bunch of boring discussion, someone remembers that Orange had a flying broom and we just fly everyone across the trap.

The next room has a dozen ghouls in it, and that’s a really rough fight, but we get through. Everyone’s exhausted and talking about taking a break. Sam prays for a minute and then says that the Mummy Lord is in the next room, and if we wait too long, we’ll end up back in the Shadowfell. That perks everyone right back up. We toss spells and preparations around and head to face him.

The golden walls and red torches give no warmth to the room. Neither do the 5 mummies in the room, including the Lord on his dark throne. There is plenty of gold and treasure in this room to split with Sam’s Daddy, once we win this fight. The Mummy Lord asks if we’re there to set him free or die, basically. Seems like he’s tired, too, but not too tired to summon up a cloud of dust and insects all around us to set off the fight.

We start smashing mummies, and Red tosses a pink toad his mage hand picked up recently at the Lord, but it just turns into a skeleton, and he takes it over. A golden light surrounds the Mummy Lord, and a golden sickle appears and starts attacking us, too. Mummies keep popping out of the gold piles after we kill some. The Mummy Lord can teleport all around the room, and knocks Sam dead with one hit. I get so distracted that one of the smaller ones cuts me down. The Big Guy gets me back up after they take the Mummy Lord down and I keep smashing the dead things to dust. Red finds the Lord’s heart, and Catbard/The Lady smashes it. The pyramid starts shaking, but we loot for almost half a minute before we run, barely making it out before it shudders and disappears.

I was hoping this report would be helpful, Spy Master, but that was a strangely empty place and it’s gone now.

Wyrms and Worms

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Red blasts light out from his flaming sword, and it makes the shadows made. A bunch of shadows, four shadowy dogs, and even a shadowing dragon all come out of the dark to attack us. Well, mostly Red. The dragon is really mad, and it kills all the dogs to try and get Red. But it got the Big Guy instead. We killed it, though, the awful thing.

Nevi and Mary Mouse start cutting it up and Sam starts to pray, or meditate, or something. She mutters to herself, and I swear she’s talking to her Daddy. When she gets back up again, she confirms that. Says her Daddy can fix the Big Guy, for a price. We have to dedicate the Mummy Lord’s death to her Daddy and give him some of its treasure. Her Daddy is some sort of worm that will destroy everything, which seems bad, but Red says that’s a long time from now. I don’t understand if we have to kill the Mummy first, or after he fixes him, but everybody agrees we will. Sam starts praying again, and snakes show up all over the Big Guy’s body and it’s all weird, but eventually, he gets up again. He seems alright, so we move on. Maybe we should have asked for Orange back, too.

There are lots more doors and traps and hallways. One room has a treasure in the middle that makes Red try to kill Nevi, but Sam fixes him before I have to knock him out. Eventually, we run out of places to go and it takes a little bit to find the hidden door.

This room smells awful and is full of corpses. We slip in, and try to find a door, but seven of the corpses stand up and attack us. They spit worms at us! Zombie worms! They are so gross, we spend as much time smashing the worms as we do the zombies, but we get rid of both. Of course we then run into a Pink Toad that turns into a deathly dog when we shoot it, so we have to put that down, too. More rooms and locked doors. Will we ever get out of here?